I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had

Host: The room was draped in the kind of silence that only follows deep loss — soft, heavy, almost reverent. The fireplace crackled faintly, sending slow embers spiraling upward like lost thoughts. Outside, the Paris night was veiled in mist; the streetlamps glowed through it like watchful eyes. It was a night for remembering. A night for ghosts.

Host: Jack sat beside the window, a cigarette burning low between his fingers, its thin smoke winding toward the ceiling in delicate, sorrowful ribbons. Jeeny sat near the fire, her hands cupped around a glass of wine, the red glow catching her eyes and turning them into something tender, eternal.

Host: Between them, written in a notebook that lay open on the table, were the words of Jean Cocteau — words that ached with both gratitude and grief:

“I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.”

Jeeny: “Seven best friends,” she said quietly. “Imagine having that many souls to lose.”

Jack: “Imagine surviving that many losses.”

Host: The wind brushed the windowpane like an old hand tracing a familiar scar.

Jeeny: “He doesn’t write like a man broken by it. He sounds… grateful.”

Jack: “Grateful?” Jack gave a small, rough laugh. “He’s thanking God for mercy that looks a lot like theft.”

Jeeny: “No. He’s thanking life for reminding him that love was lent, not owned.”

Jack: “That’s a comforting philosophy — if you enjoy heartbreak as a hobby.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, her voice deepening, gentler now. “It’s acceptance. The kind that only comes when you’ve buried enough laughter to realize grief is just another form of grace.”

Host: Jack took a long drag, his eyes tracing the ghostly smoke. “You talk like losing people is a blessing.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes it is.”

Jack: “Then you’ve never really lost someone you couldn’t replace.”

Jeeny: “You don’t replace them, Jack. You carry them. They leave shapes behind — in habits, in silence, in the way you pour your coffee or hesitate before saying their name. They become part of you, whether you invite them or not.”

Jack: “So Cocteau was saying God did him a favor by forcing him to evolve?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe he was saying that friendship itself is divine — that to have it at all, even for a while, is a kind of mercy.”

Host: The firelight wavered, painting their faces with living shadows. For a moment, the room looked less like a place and more like a memory suspended between warmth and absence.

Jack: “I think what he really meant,” Jack said, staring into the fire, “is that friendship is loaned, not gifted. That the gods never let us keep anything that precious for long.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every time he lost one, he was given another.”

Jack: “You call that mercy. I call it irony.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Host: The clock struck once — not loudly, but enough to remind them that time, too, was a kind of thief.

Jeeny: “Don’t you see? Cocteau’s not bitter. He’s saying the loss itself proves the friendship was real. You can’t grieve something that didn’t change you.”

Jack: “Change. That’s the problem. People come into your life, rearrange everything, then leave — and you’re supposed to be grateful?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly. “Because they made you rearrange everything. Because they taught you who you were before you built walls to protect it.”

Jack: “You sound like you’ve lived it.”

Jeeny: “I have.” She looked down, her fingers tightening around the glass. “My best friend — Lila. She was the brightest person I ever knew. Gone in a car accident when I was twenty-two. For a long time, I couldn’t forgive the world for taking her. Then one day, I realized she never really left. She became the voice that stops me from giving up. The laughter that visits me when I’m too serious. The grace I can’t explain.”

Host: The flames flickered as she spoke, their glow trembling like her words. Jack watched her silently, something breaking open behind his usual restraint.

Jack: “I lost someone too,” he said finally. “Tom. My brother in everything but blood. He was the one who taught me how to think — and how to fight. Then one day, the war took him. And I kept asking why. For years. Until I realized… maybe the point wasn’t to understand why he left, but to remember that he was ever here at all.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.” She smiled through her sadness. “That’s Cocteau’s mercy.”

Jack: “Mercy through pain.”

Jeeny: “Mercy through remembrance.”

Host: The rain outside softened to a mist, the street now glowing faintly under the lamps — a city half-awake, half-dreaming.

Jack: “You know what strikes me?” he said. “He says God lent a friendship. That word — lent — it’s humble. He doesn’t claim ownership of love. He treats it like art — borrowed beauty.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she whispered. “Friendship as a borrowed masterpiece. You get to hang it in your life for a while. And then, when the time comes, you return it — changed by its light.”

Jack: “You make it sound almost holy.”

Jeeny: “It is holy.”

Host: The fire had burned low, but the warmth lingered — that soft, human warmth that no philosophy could ever quite explain.

Jeeny: “You know, maybe the reason we lose people is because we’re not supposed to keep them forever. Maybe we’re just meant to carry their echo — like a song that ends, but never really leaves the air.”

Jack: “Then maybe Cocteau wasn’t mourning at all. Maybe he was giving thanks.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: She stood, setting her glass aside, and walked to the window. The city lights shimmered below like constellations made of memory.

Jeeny: “Seven times,” she said. “Seven mercies. Seven reminders that love, even when lost, is proof that we were once seen — truly seen — and that’s enough.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s what friendship is,” he said quietly. “The divine trick — the illusion of permanence that teaches us how to live with impermanence.”

Host: She turned, meeting his gaze. The air between them felt charged — not romantic, but reverent. Two souls acknowledging the invisible ones beside them.

Jeeny: “Then let’s be grateful for the ones we’ve had,” she said softly. “Even the ones that hurt to remember.”

Jack: “Especially those.”

Host: The last ember collapsed in the hearth, releasing a sigh of ash and light. The city outside was silent, save for the heartbeat of rain returning.

Host: And as they stood together in that tender stillness — two living hearts among the ghosts of seven mercies — Cocteau’s words hovered like a benediction, equal parts sorrow and grace:

“I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.”

Host: Because friendship, in its truest form, is never really lost — only transformed. It moves from voice to silence, from presence to memory, from one life to the next — carrying its quiet light wherever love dares to endure.